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Hastings farmer kills pit bull after attack on cow

HASTINGS -- A farmer who feared for the safety of her 4-year-old boy shot and killed a pit bull Thursday, seconds after it stopped attacking one of her cows and started to charge them.

Barbara Secorsky, 41, and her child were feeding their livestock around 7:30 a.m. when they saw the black pit bull attacking one of their cows in a pasture close by.

She ran back inside her home to grab a rifle, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office. When she returned to the pasture, the dog had latched onto the cow's chest.

Secorsky shouted at the dog, which released the cow and charged at her and her son, the report said. She shot the dog several times.

The dog belonged to Michael Blanton, 38, a nearby neighbor. He declined to comment.

This isn't the first time Secorsky has had to defend her livestock from Blanton's pit bull.

A St. Johns County Animal Control official said Blanton's dog was involved in an attack against Secorsky's goat earlier this month. Blanton was found guilty in a St. Johns County courtroom two weeks ago and was fined up to $500 for the attack but was still able to keep the dog, said Paul Studivant, division chief of Animal Control.

Blanton will not face charges this time. Secorsky told deputies that she would work out a settlement with Blanton outside the courtroom.

Studivant said that if the dog had not been shot and killed, it would have been confiscated anyway.

"Two attacks in one month deems the animal dangerous," he said.

Animal Control is finding that pit bulls are over-bred in the county and now fill the majority of the county's animal shelters, Studivant said.

"We used to see a lot of these dogs in the rural areas of the county, but we're starting to see them through the city now, too," Studivant said.

Studivant said there is not a common breed among the dangerous dog cases he investigates.

"For every good dog, there is a bad one, too," he said.

According to dogsbite.org, a public education website that releases research on dog attacks, six out of 10 human deaths by dog attacks in the U.S. recorded this year were by pit bulls.